"Hey, do me a favor, wear this hoodie and go hand this plastic baggie with white powder in it to that guy over there, it's for an art project, he's going to act like he doesn't know you, and then you just run in the opposite direction to where you'll be payed"
Or "here's three photos of XYZ taken on three seperate days at his new favorite coffee shop, notably across from this elementary school. Read on for our take on why he likes this shop so much!"
Or even something as simple as positioning the camera just so that one national head appears shorter than another. Or, in an interview, adjusting lights on the 'hero' to make them look good and highlight the shadows on the 'villain' to make them look ominous.
Use a mirror set up to make it look to the 'villain' that they are making eye contact but are instead looking weirdly askance.
Limitations are the origin of creativity. Force publishing RAW would just force journalists to be more creative in their framing.
Also, no edits for filesize? Lossless RAWs are huge! Especially from professional cameras. You could end up loading a gig of data for a single article with 10 images, or even more for larger frames. The few who care enough to see the 'real' image (that is still tainted by photographer intent regardless of file size and editting) are motivated enough to click the lossy jpg for the raw. Those who do not care aren't going to sit waiting on the order of minutes to see the first image.